The United States of Amnesia

Once again the fateful day is upon us which rendered even the most prone to pablum and chattery newscasters slackjawed and speechless. The event that brought the U.S. to its knees and the world to our feet offering condolences and aide. The event which quickly morphed a dumbfounded cowboy into a gun slinging John Wayne hellbent on spreading democracy at the barrel of a gun left us ruthless, self-righteous and worst of all, wishing we were Canadian. The events of 9/11 are indisputably tragic whether they were spawned by extremism, capitalism or both.

U.S. reaction to the events, however, turned the truly tragic hours of one fateful day into a tragedy of epic proportions spanning 5 years with generations of the devastated to come as a result of American intervention, occupation, and jingoism. Iran, Palestine, Israel, the whole of the middle east held candlelight vigils, issued statements condemning the acts of 9/11 and stood in solidarity with us. We responded by looping images, not of the worldwide sympathy but of a tiny minority who are purported to have celebrated in the streets. The veracity of these claims is still in question.

We have created the term Islamo-fascism to make clear our disdain for a religion which has nothing to do with fascism. Those who have chosen to bastardize their religion and manifest their anger and hatred through acts of terrorism should be reviled and stopped. Our reaction has only exacerbated anti-American sentiment, much of which is increasingly warranted by our actions. The invasion of Iraq has succeeded in murdering anywhere from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. This information is largely unknown due to military and government inefficiency and cavalier attitudes such as that of retired General Tommy Franks, U.S. Central Command who stated "We don't do body counts."

A Guardian article in 2004 reported "Christian nations' forcible occupation of Iraq, a historically important land of Islam, has more than offset any calming effect of the US military withdrawal from Saudi Ara bia," the IISS said. It added: "With Osama bin Laden's public encouragement, up to 1,000 foreign jihadists have infiltrated Iraq." Noam Chomsky stated in a Democracy Now! interview on October 7, 2003, "The result of the war, as far as we know, verified that near-universal prediction of intelligence agencies and analysts. It's been pointed out since, that, to quote a few, that the Iraq war was a huge setback for the war on terror, led to a sharp spike in recruitment for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and in fact Iraq itself was turned into a haven for terrorists for the first time. It wasn't before, but now it is."

Congratulations Mr. President, you have proved us all wrong. There is in fact a connection between Al-Qaeda and Iraq. It did not exist prior to 9/11, nor on 9/11, nor immediately after 9/11 but with our dilligent effort to create a link between the terrorist cells responsible for 9/11 we succeeded in creating an Al-Qaeda in Iraq which continues to thrive due to our irrepressible efforts to shove "democracy" down the throats of the "uncivilized nations." Oh, and it might have something to do with our brazen flouting of the Geneva Conventions and some other human rights stuff or something....whatever.